The Importance of Evangelism

In my first year of university, perhaps the most important lesson I took away was the importance of evangelism. Surprisingly, I've been a member of an Evangelical Missionary church, and the priority of the task of evangelism has never been impressed upon me. I never really grasped just how much we need to evangelize before this year. This brings up some initial concerns for me. First, how is the church failing in teaching the principles of evangelism? Secondly, if the members of the church are not grasping the importance of evangelism, what does the future look like for the church?

Answering the second question first, without evangelism, our church future looks extremely bleak. Evangelism is the way in which we add to our numbers. In Acts 2, the Pentecost is described. Essentially, Peter and the other disciples went into the streets (or possibly on top of a roof), and began to evangelize, spreading the good news about Jesus, with the help of the Holy Spirit inspiring their words. Acts 2:47 states that the disciples continued "praising God and enjoying the favour of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved." At one point after this Pentecost, 3000 people were baptized! So without adding to our numbers, just using common sense, obviously the church is going to die out pretty soon if we don't evangelize.

Now onto the first question, why is the church currently failing? I believe there are two correct answers to this dilemma. There is a lack of passion, and people are afraid. Technically, we can tie these two issues into one as you'll see in a minute. Both of these answers can be a little intimidating to tackle, as you can really offend some people. But that in itself is lack of passion and being afraid.

Everyone who knows me hopefully understands that I think passion is the key to Christianity. It's my mission, the point behind me striving to work through ministry. Passion is what should initially spark our eagerness to evangelize. Our passion should be multi-faceted. We should be passionate because of our love for our Lord, and therefore that carries through to doing whatever He says, which includes going out into the world and teaching, baptizing and making disciples (the Great Commission). We should also be passionate about our own lives, and how our faith has changed us. That excitement should generate a need to spread the news.

The second reason why we are currently failing would be that people are afraid. As I stated, this is also tied to the lack of passion issue. We are afraid that we will waste the opportunity, we are afraid that people's opinions of us will change, we are afraid that we'll ruin Jesus for people, we are afraid of pretty much everything. The thing is, when we are afraid, we're completely forgetting about Jesus, and His power. God's power is greater then anything we'll ever face here on Earth, and so we have no reason to fear.

I'll be honest, evangelism is something that I struggle with. I'm a very reserved person, I tend not to discuss personal things with people. I have my moments where I'll definitely step up to the plate, such as explaining something, or debating, or speaking in front of a crowd, but personal evangelism isn't my strong suit. However, as a Christian, it's something that we all have to work on. It's one of the essentials of our faith.